


Epiphany

by haledamage



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: F/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 11:10:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21319225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haledamage/pseuds/haledamage
Summary: Darling, Kai thought, for at least the hundredth time.What was I thinking? Am I flirting with Rekke? Have Ialwaysbeen flirting with Rekke?
Relationships: Rekke/The Watcher
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	Epiphany

**Author's Note:**

> this was started by a prompt on tumblr and snowballed into what you see before you :)
> 
> special thanks to queen_scribbles and rannadylin for being the best and worse enablers a girl could ask for

“Okay. I should be back in three days, if all goes well.”

Kai shouldered her rucksack and turned to leave, but Rekke’s voice stopped her before she made it to the door. “And if it does not go well?”

“...I’ll still be back in three days, but angrier.” She turned back to him with a sigh. He leaned lazily against the bulkhead nearby, hands in his pockets. “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone. And don’t let anyone else do anything stupid either.”

His grin was wide and easy. “You never let me have any fun, Kiki.”

“You aren’t here to have fun, my dear,” she said sourly, fighting against the smile that wanted to spread across her face in response to his. “I need you to keep Edér from getting assassinated while I go deal with the source.”

He took a step toward her, laid-back demeanor bleeding away like it had never been there. Concern filled his expression, scarred mouth twisting into a deep frown. He switched to Seki, words hurried and serious. “_I should be going with you. I can’t be your bodyguard if I’m not there to guard you_.”

“You are not my bodyguard.” It came out a harsh hiss, too defensive. Kai took a deep breath and continued, calmer. “I don’t need a bodyguard. There aren’t any assassins after _me_… for once.”

“_That doesn’t mean I won’t worry about you, Kiki_.” Rekke took another step forward. He pushed a few wayward curls out of her eyes, fingers brushing her cheek. “_I always worry. You attract trouble like no one I’ve ever met_.”

“Is that why you’re still here?” She tried to make it a joke, but it sounded much too somber.

“_Ta_.” He finally smiled at her again, but it was a sweet and gentle thing. She scowled at it, trying to read the meaning behind it, but it was in a language she didn’t quite understand.

Kai wasn’t sure if he meant that he was there to keep her out of trouble, or if he was the trouble she had attracted. She tried to stop thinking of Rekke being attracted to her in any capacity.

She sighed and took a small step away from him. “It’s only three days. I’ll try not to start any new wars against gods while I’m gone.”

She turned to leave again, but he caught her arm before she could get far. When she turned back, he was standing very close. She had to crane her neck to look up at him. Once again in Aedyran, he said, “You cannot leave without letting me hug you first.”

Several replies to that surfaced in her mind, from acidic to mildly annoyed to ridiculous and sentimental. In the end, all she said was, “Fine.”

That was all the encouragement he needed.

Kai had been aware, empirically, how much taller and broader than her Rekke was, but when his arms wrapped around her it became very clear just how much bigger he was than her. She was completely engulfed by his embrace. He held her with a bone-creaking strength, none of the playful casualness she expected from him. She froze for several long moments before she hesitantly hugged him back.

When he finally let her go, he didn’t go far. He leaned close, his hair falling like a curtain over one side of his face. It brushed Kai’s shoulder, red curls mingling with her own. “Do I get a goodbye kiss, too?”

She shoved him away and he grinned, amused and smug. She tried to ignore how very, very red her face was. “Don’t push your luck.”

“Ah well,” he said, laughter in his voice. “A man can dream, _ta_? Be careful, Kiki.”

“I will. You too, darling.”

\-------

_Darling_, Kai thought, for at least the hundredth time. _What was I thinking? Am I flirting with Rekke? Have I_ always_ been flirting with Rekke?_ It would be a little dramatic to say she was panicking about the idea that she’d been flirting with him for months and hadn’t realized it, but to say that she was alarmed by the idea would perhaps be an understatement.

It wasn’t like she didn’t find him attractive, of course. She was reserved, but she wasn’t blind; it hadn’t escaped her notice that she always felt a little warmer when he smiled at her, or that she sought his company more often than might be considered proper. But there was a difference between finding someone attractive and being attracted to them. When had one become the other?

“Cap, all due respect,” Serafen grumbled from where he half-leaned, half-lay against a bench in the dimly-lit ship’s hold they found themselves in, “but if you don' find somethin' else t' think about, I'm liable t' mutiny.”

Kai glared in his direction, but since his eyes weren’t open it was lost on him. “If you don't like what I'm thinking about, stop listening.”

“Wish it were that easy.” He opened one eye just long enough to give her a sour look. “I wouldn' be confounded if the lad can hear you mooning over ‘im from ‘ere.”

“I’m not _mooning_.”

“Course y’ain’t,” he said. “An’ I’m the fuckin’ May Queen.”

“An honor to make your acquaintance, your majesty,” Kai said dryly.

Serafen didn’t take the hint and stop talking, unfortunately, but he never did. “There ain’t no shame in wantin’ to find a bit o' comfort in a pretty lad.” He smiled at her, all teeth. “And your lad be mighty pretty.”

“That's not… it isn't… we aren't…” She scowled as if it would somehow make her more eloquent. “I think you've got the wrong idea.”

“Protest all you want, Cap.” He chuckled and tapped his temple. “I can see what's in your head.”

“Well, stay out of it,” she snapped. Without another word, she turned to walk away. She didn’t get very far, the hold small enough to feel crowded even with only five people in it.

“What is all the yelling about, I say?” Tekēhu stood near the doorway, the tallest part of the hold. Even still he had to bend down awkwardly to keep from scraping his head on the rough wooden ceiling. The look he gave her told her plainly that he knew exactly what the yelling was about, but wanted her to answer anyway.

“Oh, you know,” Kai said, voice still a little sharp in annoyance. “I said something to Rekke before we left and now I'm rethinking every conversation I've ever had with him for clues to how I ended up here. As one does, I suppose.”

Tekēhu laughed, the sound seeming to echo in the small space. “Ekera, you are as bad as he is, Captain.”

She stared at him, startled and confused and intrigued in equal parts. “What do you mean by--” she cut herself off, shaking her head, “no. No. I don't want to know. I don't have time for this. Stop _meddling_.”

“As you say, Captain,” he said, still amused.

Kai stormed away from him too, toward the other end of the boat. It was a short walk. _Can’t a woman have an epiphany in peace?_

She sat on a bench next to Ydwin and the Devil of Caroc, who were both silently glaring at nothing in particular and basically ignoring each other. “Are either of you going to try to give me advice?”

“No.” Ydwin said, sounding mostly bored.

The Devil added in a hollow voice, “We don’t care.”

“_Good_.” Kai sat back, letting her head thunk onto the side of the boat. She couldn’t hear anything beyond it, not even the ocean. “Thank you for coming along, Devil.”

The Devil of Caroc made a motion that was probably supposed to be a shrug, metal shoulder jerking stiffly. “Got nowhere better to be. And I still owe you.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes. I do.” Devil finally looked at her then. For all that her face couldn’t show emotion, she was obviously rolling her eyes. “It ain’t up to you what debts I do or don’t pay, Kiki.”

“Eyes up, Cap,” Serafen called suddenly. His eyes glowed a deep blue-violet. “Looks like them assassins took th’ bait after all.”

Kai closed her eyes and took a deep breath, forcing her ruminations about Rekke out of her thoughts and reaching out with her senses. She could feel the minds of her companions, each as different mentally as they were physically, and above them on the deck of their boat, eight unfamiliar figures with minds full of suspicion and violence.

When she opened her eyes again, they flickered with violet fire. Next to her, Ydwin’s eyes glowed as well, a cold lavender. “Tekēhu,” she said, both aloud and in their minds, “if you would be so kind as to get the door for our guests.”

\-------

The hatch opened and Xoti stuck her head below deck of _the Defiant_. Her hood mostly obscured her face, but did nothing to hide the enthusiasm in her voice. “Hey, Rekke, you busy? Edér and I were just gonna get some shoppin’ done, you wanna come with us? Watcher said you were on babysitting duty.”

From somewhere behind her on the deck of the ship came Edér’s voice, tired and annoyed. “I’m gonna tell you what I told Kiki: I don’t need a damn babysitter.”

Xoti disappeared for a moment, but Rekke could still hear her easily enough. “It ain’t up to you. Unless you wanna be the one to tell Kai you got yourself killed because you were too stubborn to use the buddy system.” There was a quiet clank, like a tiny, bossy priestess had just poked an armored farmer in the chest. “And you can be damn sure I’d keep your soul in the lantern long enough for her to yell at you about it.” She reappeared in the open hatch, smiling once more. “So whaddya say?”

Rekke chuckled, already reaching for his sword and armor. “_Ta_. Yes. How can I say no, when you put it this way?”

“Alright, c’mon then. Daylight’s burnin’.”

It was a relatively quiet day in the marketplace, just busy enough to keep the three of them on guard but not quite enough that someone could sneak through the crowd to catch them unaware. Rekke took the opportunity to think back to his conversation with Kai before she left on her hunt, as he’d been doing for most of the day.

He should have probably been embarrassed by how much he dwelt on how it felt to have her in his arms for that brief moment, how her hair smelled like woodsmoke, how tiny she was. The Watcher was larger than life, hunter of gods and saver of worlds; it was easy to forget sometimes that the elf behind the grand title was so small, so delicate.

Mostly, he thought of the look she gave him right before she left. Surprise and then panic, as if he had said something wrong… or she had.

Xoti elbowed him in the arm, bringing him out of his reverie. “Somethin’ on your mind, darlin’?”

“That!” he said, too loudly. Xoti looked at him like he’d grown a second head. He ignored it. “That word. What does it mean?”

“Darlin’?”

“_Ta!_ Kiki called me that before she left.” On Xoti’s other side, Rekke saw Edér turn and look their way, suddenly interested in the conversation. “She seemed… upset. Or confused. She left very quickly.”

“Oh.” A sly smile spread across the priestess’s face, like she knew something he didn’t; he suspected that was very likely true. “Well, it’s a term of endearment. Like a… a pet name, I guess. Like ‘honey’ or ‘sweetheart’ or…” she paused, but she couldn’t think of any others offhand. “It’s not one I hear her use much. She mostly just calls everyone ‘dear’ like she’s some sweet old lady or somethin’.”

“_Yukag?_ So it is a good thing?”

“Yes, I’d say so. Dunno why she’d be confused by it, though.” She thought about it for a minute, then shrugged. “Might wanna talk to her about it when she gets back.”

“I agree,” Rekke said slowly, mind already wandering. Trying to figure Kai out was like trying to work a puzzle while blindfolded. He knew all the pieces were there, he just couldn’t see how they fit together yet. Lucky for him he enjoyed a challenge.

“You and Kiki’ve been spending a lot of time together lately, huh?” Edér said suddenly, dragging Rekke out of his thoughts once more. The soldier stared at him like he was trying to read his mind. Rekke didn’t think he actually had that ability, but he couldn’t be sure.

“I suppose that is true, _ta_,” he said carefully. He had a feeling that if he said the wrong thing here, it could mean bad things for him. Still, he couldn’t help adding, a small smile spreading over his face, “She says that I make her laugh. I like to make her laugh.”

“Uh-huh.” Edér didn’t look like he liked that answer. He sighed and scratched at his beard. “Just… be careful, alright? She’s been through a lot the last few years. I don’t want to see her get hurt.”

Rekke tilted his head curiously. He knew that Edér and Kai were as close as family; if he didn’t know better, this sounded a lot like the ‘break her heart and I’ll kill you’ speech - if perhaps a little less threatening than he’d heard it in the past. He liked the idea that he and Kiki were close enough to elicit such a warning. “I think you misunderstand. We are friends. She only sees me as a friend. That is all.”

“Is that all you see her as?” Edér waited for an answer, but Rekke didn’t say anything. He also made no effort to stop either the blush blooming across his cheeks or the besotted grin on his lips. Again, Edér said, “Uh-huh. Just remember what I said.”

“I will. Thank you, Edér.” He didn’t know why he thanked him, but it felt like the right thing to say.

“Hey,” Xoti called from a few steps ahead of them. She had her sickle in her hand. “Do y’all remember when you said you didn’t need a babysitter? Did you tell your assassins that?”

\-------

“I suppose it was too much to ask that we’d lure their leader out here and be done with it all.” Kai sifted through the meager belongings they’d found on the assassins. There wasn’t much more than a handful of coins, a single sheet of paper, the writing on it smudged into illegibility, and eight crude, wooden human effigies, one found in each of the assassins pockets. Just what she’d been afraid of. She shoved all of it into her bag.

“Probably. At least they told you where to find him. Sort of.” The Devil of Caroc glanced warily over her shoulder at Serafen. She didn't like ciphers even on a good day, but the mindhunter's little show of power had clearly made her nervous. “Want me to take care of it?”

“Tempting, but no.” Kai always felt guilty sending Devil out to do her dirty work for her, though she’d never tell her that. Just because the construct said she wanted to do so didn’t mean she should keep taking advantage. “I’ll take care of it myself. I’ve got a few questions for him.” Quietly, she added, “But thank you.”

The Devil did that jerky, stiff shrug again. “Ain’t no brass off my back either way. Got to see the ocean and kill a bunch of people on it. You’ve sent me on worse jobs.”

“You could stay with us, you know.” Kai knew she shouldn’t say it, but she always did.

Devil shook her head. “Don’t ask. You know what my answer is.”

“I know. But the offer stands.”

“I know.” The Devil of Caroc started walking away. She stopped on the edge of the boat and lifted a hand in her version of a friendly wave. “See you around, Kiki. You know where to find me.” Without another word, she stepped off the side of the boat and sank below the waves. 

Kai shook her head, chuckling to herself. The Devil did love her dramatic exits.

Serafen leaned over the edge, staring down into the depths as if he expected to see a bronze construct swim by. “Well, she was charmin', if you like ‘em cranky and rusted.”

“What’s her story?” Ydwin asked, something that almost resembled curiosity in her voice.

“Not mine to tell.” She tried not to feel too smug about the hint of annoyance on Ydwin’s face and turned to start setting the sails and getting the ship moving again. “Come on. Let’s go home. Looks like we’ll have to finish this hunt another day.”

The return trip was quiet and uneventful. The whole trip had been, really. As far as assassins go, these were barely professionals. The only problem was how many of them there were, but they'd take care of that next.

Kai hoped things were just as uneventful back with _the Defiant_. The idea that she'd gone hunting for the hunters only to have one sneak around while her back was turned made her uneasy. Better not to think about it, or else she'd drive herself mad before they made it back home.

She sighed. Was it too early to try to get some sleep? They'd travelled light, so she had nothing on board to keep herself entertained while they sailed; she wished she'd brought a book or something.

“He's a good lad, y'know,” Serafen said suddenly, because apparently the fight wasn’t enough to get his mind on a different subject. “Your stowaway. Weird, but which of us ain't.”

“Serafen, stay out of my head,” Kai snapped, sharper than intended. She knew his meddling was well-intentioned, but she had enough well-meaning would-be brothers trying to give her advice. She didn’t need another one.

He shrugged and laid back on his bench again, looking for all the world like he was sleeping. Kai knew better. “Weren't in your head, Cap. Don't take no mind reader to know you're thinkin’ ‘bout ‘im. Cipher as strong as you should know how t’ hide her thoughts better anyhow.”

“I can hide my thoughts just fine, thank you. Just not from you, for some reason.” She had very good mental shields, in fact; the problem was that, since Serafen had no formal cipher training, he had ways of seeing around them that she didn’t know how to compensate for. “And I wasn't thinking about him. I was thinking about _sleeping_.” She knew it would have happened sooner or later, though, as it had been with alarming frequency.

“Don't see what you're so bothered ‘bout,” Serafen said, answering her thoughts as if she’d said them aloud. “He obviously fancies you. Always has done. If you weren’ so fuckin’ uptight, ‘e might’ve already told y’ so.”

She thought about denying that she was uptight, but she was too self-aware for that. Instead, she just said, “Well, that's certainly news to me.”

“He's always flirtin’ with you.”

“So are you.” She shrugged. “Doesn't mean anything.”

“Heh. It could've.”

“You don't have a single romantic bone in your body.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them.

Serafen, predictably, grinned at her. “Just the one, aye.”

“Charming,” she said sourly, but she smiled in spite of herself. She looked away from him at the others, but Tekēhu was above deck and Ydwin could have been either sleeping or dead as still as she was. There was nowhere she could go to escape this conversation.

“Life be short, Cap,” he said, tone unexpectedly somber. “Even when you live as long as elves do. Ain't no point wastin’ time on 'someday'.”

Kai looked back at him, surprised, but he still looked like he wasn’t even paying attention, lazy and half-asleep. “That's… unexpectedly wise, coming from you.”

The seriousness in his voice was gone just like that, replaced with another sharp-toothed grin. “I be full of surprises. I'm willin’ t’ share a few others, if you ask real nice.”

She scoffed. “I ought to set you on fire.”

“You’re the one that has t’ live with the burnt fur smell,” Serafen said, chuckling when she scoffed again.

\-------

“Captain on deck!”

Rekke quickly tried to look casual, like he hadn’t been waiting anxiously since the crew had first spotted the boat that Kai and her team had taken. He picked up a book from a nearby shelf and started thumbing through it. He recognized the sound of her boots on the deck above, steps measured and purposeful, and then a moment later she strode through the open hatch and down the stairs. She spared him a quick glance before turning to Edér and tossing something toward him. He scrambled to catch it before it hit him in the head.

“Skaenites,” Kai said, as if it explained everything. Maybe to her and Edér it did. “It’s your Skaenites again.”

“I guess I should have expected that,” Edér said, looking at whatever she’d thrown at him. He rubbed a hand over his chin in thought. “I’d hoped they wouldn’t follow me all the way out here.”

Kai smiled, but it didn’t look the least bit friendly. “Lucky for us they’re as ineffectual as they are stubborn.”

Edér sighed. He dropped the mysterious object onto his bunk. “God of resentment and covert plots. If they’d given up, they wouldn’t be good Skaenites, would they?”

“I guess…” Kai ran her fingers through her messy mane of curls, leaving them messier. “But assassins? I’d expect that more from Magranites. Or Galawain’s hunters, maybe.”

“Piss off a lot of Magranites, Kiki?”

“Just the one.” Her smile widened, triumphant, and Edér chuckled like she’d said something funny. “Right, well, we should have a couple days reprieve before they send more. Long enough to resupply.” She poked Edér in the chest. “_You_ don’t go anywhere alone for a little while. Xoti told me about the market.”

“Of course she did,” Edér grumbled, but he didn’t argue.

“Oh please.” She poked him in the chest again, but less forcefully. Rekke was reminded abruptly of his sister. “Like you’ve ever been able to keep a secret from me.”

Edér put his hands on Kai’s shoulders and lowered his voice. “Kiki, you don’t need to do all this. It’s my mess, not yours.”

“No. That isn’t how this works, my dear.” Edér was going to have a bruise from being poked in the chest even with all that armor, if Kai and Xoti had anything to say about it. “You carried my empty husk halfway around the world to get my soul back, the least I can do is protect you from territorial Skaenites.”

Edér hugged her and she froze before hugging him back. Rekke looked back down at his book, trying not to intrude on what felt like a private moment. He heard a whispered exchange between the Watcher and the farmer, but tried not to pay attention to it.

“Your book is upside down.”

“_Ta_. I find them more interesting this way.” He looked up and there she was, smelling like fire and sunlight and the sea and looking at him a bit like he was a crazy person. “Hello, Kiki.”

“Hello, darling.” Her cheeks turned a lovely shade of pink. “Xoti tells me you had an interesting day at the market yesterday.”

“Did we? We bought some fruit, we fought some assassins, Edér found another cat. Another beautiful day in Neketaka.” He set the book down, presumably on a table or bunk but he didn’t look to see where it ended up. “I wish it rained less here. It makes my hair…” he paused, but he couldn’t think of the Aedyran word, “_eshibiz_.”

Kai laughed, bright and warm. “Indeed. That’s a good word for it.” She looked like she wanted to say something else but she didn’t, an unfamiliar hesitance in the set of her shoulders, the way she absentmindedly rubbed her palms together, nothing like the cool, confident woman he had come to know.

Shy. She looked _shy_. Rekke didn’t know she knew how.

He took a step forward and reached out to her, resting his hand on the curve of her shoulder, just wanting to stop the overthinking he could see behind her eyes. She looked up at him, surprised and momentarily unguarded, and in a rush, he said, “Take me with you next time.” He wasn’t sure if he’d said it in Aedyran or Seki. Maybe both.

Kai raised an eyebrow at him, amused at the demand in his voice, but she looked more like herself, less lost. “I intend to. I know better than to leave you to entertain yourself for too long. You’ll end up doing something… how was it you phrased it? Something noble or stupid.”

Rekke blushed at the way her eyes followed the scar across his face when she said that. She looked like she wanted to touch it. He wished she would, but she kept her hands firmly to herself, contained and controlled as she always was. “I am very good at noble and stupid. Mostly the second one. I am told it makes me charming.”

“That’s one word for it, I guess,” she said with a smirk.

“You do not find me charming, Kiki?” She blushed scarlet all the way to the tips of her ears and he grinned wickedly. “I will have to try harder then, _ta_?”

She stared at him, searching his face, though for what he didn’t know. He just kept smiling at her and slowly she started to smile back.

Above deck, someone called “Captain!” and Kai took two large steps back. She drew herself up to her full height, such as it was. It was like watching her put her armor back on; Rekke couldn’t recall when exactly she’d taken it off. “I should go,” she said quietly.

“_Gigideb ke tahun_. I did not mean to keep you from your work.”

Rekke watched her closely as she walked away, then listened until he couldn’t hear her footsteps anymore. Only then did he collapse back against the side of the ship, running his hands over his hair. He made no effort to stop the smitten smile he wore.

He became aware of eyes on him, and turned to find Serafen sitting at one of the tables in the mess hall, staring at him through the open door. He stared back for a moment, but the orlan didn’t so much as blink. He called out, “_Ku_? Is there a problem?”

“That remains to be seen, lad. You tell me.” Serafen didn’t wait for an answer, though, just walked away, leaving Rekke confused and feeling like he was being judged for something he hadn’t done. He shrugged the thought away and left to find something to occupy his time.


End file.
